85 percent of the 30,000 Anglo-Saxon words died out under the influence of the Danes and Normans. That means that only about 4,500 Old English words survived-about 1 percent of the total number of words in the Oxford English Dictionary. And yet those surviving words are among the most fundamental words in English: man, wife, child, brother, sister, live, fight, love, drink, sleep, eat, house, and so on.
According to Bill Bryson's "The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got that Way," the impact of the Danes and Normans led to the loss of a significant portion of the Old English vocabulary, with 85 percent of the original 30,000 Anglo-Saxon words becoming obsolete. This result left a mere 4,500 words that have endured through the ages, which is only about 1 percent of the entries in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Interestingly, the words that survived are foundational to the English language and human experience, encompassing essential concepts such as family, emotions, and daily activities. Words like man, woman, child, love, and eat continue to be integral to communication, highlighting their importance despite the drastic reduction in the overall vocabulary.
